I have been lucky enough to have lived with my grandmother for the past few months. Nathan and I came home from the Peace Corps with little money, no where to live, and no jobs. Without any hesitation, she offered us her house, and we quickly accepted. It has been wonderful to not only live near our favorite town, Asheville, but also to have the love and support of Ganny. One thing I will definitely miss when I move next week is her cooking! She is a truly wonderful cook. She never uses a recipe, uses local food as her inspiration, and everything she makes tastes wonderful. I am not lying…I still don’t know her secret, but without a doubt I have never ever tasted a bad thing from her kitchen!

I picked up my last CSA box on Tuesday Unfortunately, the farm is too far away for Nathan and I to continue picking up vegetables. Luckily, my friend Jen, gladly is taking over our subscription and she and her boyfriend Anthony will take full advantage of yummy late summer and fall veggies. I hope she’ll post some of her recipe creations on her blog (hint, hint Jen!)

Well with my last veggies, I passed a few off to Ganny because I have had little time lately to cook. She took the corn, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, beets, and potatoes and made this wonderful meal last night….

See why I’m going to miss this so much?

I hope everyone’s week is getting off to a great start! I’m still hard at work at Day Camp, as well as commuting every few days to our new home. Last time I was there, I made a “bakeless pasta bake” for dinner. As I mentioned in the last post, this is a complete oxymoron! But the trick is that you add uncooked pasta to the dish and then bake it, as opposed to cooking to the pasta first. I’ve done this many times with lasagna and it always works out well. I thought this recipe was a complete no-brainer that would be fast and easy. It was fast and easy, but didn’t taste that great. It actually took a really long time to cook (over an hour) and came out kinda chewy. But we were starving and could wait no longer…We ate it! Nathan has reheated it since then and says it tastes great. But I think once was enough for me

Here’s the inspiration for the dish…plus here….

And these are the stars of the dish straight from my CSA box:

I made my own tomato sauce, complete with basil and my sister’s homemade “spaghetti sauce seasoning:”

The one thing I forgot to do was remove the tomato skins before making the sauce…So out they came (actually rather easily) in the midst of cooking…

I made the sauce a couple of days in advance and it was ready to go the night I began preparing the “bakeless bake”

Here are the steps:

1. Add frozen peppers (or any vegetable you’d like)

2. Add fresh spinach

3. Add pasta…I used spaghetti because it was what I had available!

4. Add the sauce (use jarred if you wish)

5. And top with cheese!

Here’s the final dish out of the oven….

and in my bowl

Definite comfort food in need of some tweaking…Maybe I should stick with lasagna?! Have a great day!

And life continues to be busy.  I’ve been commuting back and forth from my grandmother’s home in the mountains to our new home in the foothills.  I’ve still been working, so life has been a bit hectic with little free time.  Plus I forgot my camera at the house…My husband should be bringing it to me tomorrow when it’s his turn to commute  

I made a great bakeless pasta bake (oxymoron right?!) last night based on Ashley’s recipe.  Kath recently made it too, and it looked so easy that I knew I had to try it.  I did, it worked, and tasted good.  Not sure the recipe is a keeper…lasagna is MUCH more satisfying but it was a great experiment that provided a healthy and easy dinner.  I’ll be sharing pictures with you later this weekend…

In the meantime, remember the photo shoot I did?  Here are a few more picture’s on the florist’s website.  It’s under “wedding design” and then “eco inspiration shoot.”  Enjoy!

Still in need to sleep